(Closed) Hard Day

I am relatively still new to this site but really needed to vent as got no one else to talk to at the moment. Today has been a particularly hard day and I’m sorry if this is long as there are many different components.

First of all wedding planning in itself is stressful. I have been planning my wedding day for 2 years but only recently had to put any of those plans into action as we decided to move the wedding over a year forward. I hadn’t realised how little I had actually planned until now, and only just realised that this whole time I think I must have spent my time just looking at pictures and coming up with more and more ideas. Keep stressing at my Mum, which doesn’t help and I feel bad for.

I am also about to go into my final year of a pharmacy degree. Not the best of times to be planning a wedding exactly but I had to move the wedding forward for reasons I will explain in the rest of the post. So I have a dissertation to get organised and my final exams this year. This isn’t helped by me needing to find a pre-registration place for the end of my degree. I keep watching all my friends get them on facebook and feeling really down as I have been turned down sooo many times.

So to explain why I have moved the wedding forward is, because my Dad is seriously ill. He has no kidneys and has been on dialysis for many years. Over the last year he has been suffering from confusion, struggling to walk due to shakey legs and some other problems, with little help from his doctors. It’s strange because I’m away so much that I normally see Dad on his good days, so seeing him bad today has been particularly hard. Our wedding day was meant to be in 2014 but with him being so ill and having several scares this year I just couldn’t face the idea of him not being at my wedding so we decided to move the wedding forward. My FI’s parents have been great and are giving us the money on a payback option as both of us are students but the whole money still worries me as I like to be independent that way.

To top this all off my FI lives 250 miles away and has been really busy today as he is doing his degree as well as two jobs to keep us out of debt as much as possible. It is so hard on days like today when I really could do with him with me to give me a cuddle. He has tried to find the odd minute to talk to me but it is just not the same. He is home soon though for a day or two, which is all I’m holding on too.

I’m sorry this is sooo long but I just needed to get that off my chest and if anyone has managed to make it to the bottom of this; how do I keep my head above water because right now I feel like I’m drowning?

Whenever I feel overwhelmed and like I’m drowning in my own life, I ask myself, “How do you eat an elephant Nona? One bite at a time.”

And when I’m flustered, angry, frustrated and feeling generally misunderstood and unappreciated in this world, I retreat to the one place on this Earth where I am queen of all I see…my bathtub…it’s a known fact that no bad vibes can penetrate tile and the sound of running water is a stress reliever…go in there and shut the door on wedding and time and pharamaceuticals…you must be really smart by the way…and have a good soak! Read a trashy romance novel that is nothing but bilge and words like “throbbing” and “ache”…put on some lovely jammies and snuggle into bed, eat cookies in there, no one is watching and take a break…you’ll feel all better tomorrow and then you can start eating that white wedding elephant, one bite at a time!

I’m sorry for everything you are going through. It all sounds like a lot to handle. Can you just take a mini break from it for the evening.

I used to have what I called “quilt nights”. My grandmother made a beautiful quilt for each of her granddaughters. On bad days, I would have a quilt night. I would come home, get into my pajamas, pour a glass of diet Pepsi, lay down on the sofa and pull the quilt up over my head. It was like a cocoon of calm.

@Nona99 Thanks for the take one bite at a time advice, it really has helped to put things into perspective. Unfortunately we own no bath but I am about to go for a very long shower with the hope that it will have the same effect, after your suggestion and thanks I don’t think pharmaceuticals makes me smart just darn stupid to try and push my self to prove to everyone I can. But wouldn’t change it.

@Pamelor55 I am actually going to take this on. One night a week I am going to definitely have one of your “quilt nights” as they sound awesome and I think I will need it for the next coming weeks. Hoping that things will eventually calm down.

@Sugarpug2012 thank you. Everyone’s words are really helping. It’s nice to know that there are people out there to talk to at times of turmoil.

Other than your dad being ill, I’m in exactly the same boat. FI is 110 miles away until just before the wedding. I’m just starting grad school this semester. Working two jobs, getting married in 2 weeks, FI working one job, going to be starting a second. Been planning the wedding for 2 years too – your paragraph about wedding planning for 2 years could have come straight from my head.

I don’t really have much advice for you, which I know isn’t that helpful. But just know that you’re not in it alone, and when you’re stressing about your calendar or planning checklist, or anything busy-ness related…. just remember to focus on why you’re doing this in the first place. Why you’re going to pharmaceutical school. Focus on the fact that you’re there at all (your program knows you can do it, otherwise you wouldn’t be there!). And why you’re planning and stressing… getting married to the love of your life.

I know how I’m feeling right now (which is pretty awful), so I can’t imagine the pain and stress of also watching a parent go through that. All I can say is that try not to let yourself get so wrapped up in your details of life that you miss out on spending time with him or appreciating that time. I wish you the best of luck and love.